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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166993">clogged streets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Batfamily-centric (DCU), Fear gas, Gen, TW: Fear Gas, TW: Needles (Vaccinations)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:56:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,424</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166993</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoiler didn’t want to know what the fumes were making people see, but the noise alone was enough for her to guess, and none of her guesses were all that pretty.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>No Romantic Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fanfic Anonymous</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>clogged streets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stephanie reached up, tugging a lock of hair out from where it was trapped between the band of her mask and her ear, looking over to Tim. it was hard to tell, but he just seemed resigned to their fate. Then again, wasn’t every day that a maniac released fear gas in every single street, making it feel like the end of the world. The fear gas was normal. The amount of it was not.</p>
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>“C’mon,” Stephanie said, lifting her hood and heading towards the Bunker’s street exit. “Let’s go.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Outside, was frankly, depressing. The street lamps were all on, but the gas was so thick that you couldn’t see the supports, and the lights were all faint. They seemed to be floating, like urban will’ o’ wisps or something. People were crying. Screaming. Begging.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“No! I swear, no!”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>“You </em>died<em>.”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“Please! Please, come back!”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class=""><p>Spoiler didn’t want to know what the fumes were making people see, but the noise alone was enough for her to guess, and none of her guesses were all that pretty. On occasion, a gunshot or car alarm or other sounds that make her heartthrob and want to run and help the sources would echo through the remarkably empty streets. But that wasn’t the mission priority. The mission priority was curing. Something Spoiler could deliver.</p>
<p></p><div class=""><p>The gas pricked at her eyes, making them tear up, but she pushed past it, running down the street, and trying to find the first door to the building right beside the Bunker. Besides the low visibility, which meant bikes and grapples were too risky to be optional, they had to enter all the buildings, search all the rooms, in order to ensure that they cured as many people as possible. </p></div><div class=""><p>First victim. Kid, back against a wall, fists raised. Angry, trying to hide his terror.</p></div><div class=""><p>Spoiler weaved around his punch, one hand snaking around to grab the kid in a headlock. Her free hand drew the first dose and found a vein to inject it in. The kid went slack in her arms after a few moments, and she lowered him to the ground. Checked his pulse. It was slowing back to down a regular, resting pace, and Spoiler arranged the kid’s limbs so that if he threw up - it was known to happen with the fear gas - he wouldn’t choke on it.</p></div><div class=""><p>She found the door to the first building, which was a rather nice apartment building, picked the lock in under two seconds flat, and headed inside, working through the building, apartment by apartment. </p></div><div class=""><p>It didn’t take long to find a dead body. An elder. Spoiler didn’t try and revive them, just slid their eyes shut, marked the coordinates down and sent a message to Oracle before she kept going. She cleared the building, then the next one. Four buildings after that was a cafe, and she was just parking an abandoned stroller inside of it, preparing a pair of doses for both the babies inside, when Oracle’s voice filtered through her comm.</p></div><div class=""><p>“Spoiler, return to Bunker.”</p></div><div class=""><p>“Why?” Spoiler asked, searching for a vein on the child's head, as the rest were too small at their age.</p></div><div class=""><p>“You’ve been out for four hours.”</p></div><div class=""><p>“Oh.”</p></div><div class=""><p>She might not be breathing the gas directly, but the exposure she’d been facing warranted a break, a dose of the cure, and a checkup. They couldn’t spare anyone, which meant taking breaks to ensure that nothing was getting past the filters. </p></div><div class=""><p>Gotham was a big city. Point nine million people, and only a dozen vigilantes, give or take. The odds were pretty terrible.</p></div><div class=""><hr/></div><div class=""><p>“We’ve put the city on lockdown,” Barbara relayed, staring at the computers with a hopeless aura that she couldn’t shake. She could only track her family through the actual trackers in their suits, as all cameras were pointless in the low visibility. “The Arrows are guarding all the exits, keeping people out and making sure anyone who gets out from inside doesn’t do anything crazy. One thousand five hundred cures deployed so far.”</p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“The League?”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>“On standby. We can’t guarantee the effects of this version of the gas on all of them, so any heavy hitters are staying away. Having a maniac Superboy once was enough. Superman like that... it’s game over, for a lot of the heavy hitters.”</p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Good.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>“I’ve sent Batgirl out. She can handle it, and we need help.”</p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“You sure?”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>“No. Of course, I want her here, safe, but either I send her out or she’ll start improvising. This way, I’m in control.”</p></div><div class=""><p>“Fine. Keep me updated. Question?”</p></div><div class=""><p>“Haven’t found him yet. She’s not the priority, but if she does come up, we’ll make her one. I promise.”</p></div><div class=""><p>“Good. Call me if I’m needed.”</p></div><div class=""><p>Click. The line went dead. Barbara sighed, and twisted around, pulling up camera’s from the Arrow’s locations.</p></div><div class=""><p>There were thirteen entrances to Gotham. One (admittedly small) airport on the northside, a port on the west side, two underground trains to the mainland, a ferry, and eight bridges. The ferry, airport and port were all locked down, leaving ten exits.</p></div><div class=""><p>The Jacob Kane Memorial Bridge, the Guardian Bridge, and the Rising Bridge were the largest three. The Rising Bridge was a bascule and had been put up, meaning that it wasn’t being used. The controllers had already been cured and were staying put.</p></div><div class=""><p>The Guardian Bridge had Black Canary guarding it, while the Jacob Kane Bridge had Tigress.</p></div><div class=""><p>Of the remaining seven exits, the Marcus Allen Memorial Bridge had Arsenal, the Rogers train line had Sin, the L-train had broken Arrow, the Gotham Bay Bridge had Green Arrow, the Wayne Enterprises Suspension Bridge had White Canary, and the Northern and Southern Bridges had Wild Dog, Ragman, and Mr. Terrific, as they were right beside each other.</p></div><div class=""><p>“All guards, report in."</p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Jacob Kane Memorial. We’re good.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Guardian Bridge is clear.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“North and South are good.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Marcus Allen secure.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Rogers train clear.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“L-train clear”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Gotham Bay Bridge secure.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>“Wayne Enterprises is empty.”</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>“All clear,” Barbara confirmed. “Eight hours elapsed, hang in there.”</p></div><div class=""><p>Confirmations filled her ears, and Barbara turned back to her family’s trackers. Kate and Bette were combing thrown downtown side by side, Bruce a few blocks away from them with Damian. Jason was at the docks, alone, probably clearing up the illegal organizations while curing those who needed it. Carrie had found Tim at the airport, and Dick was working his way through the underground train lines. The Rows, Cass, and Duke were on the south side. Renee was still MIA.</p></div><div class=""><p>Eight hours of exposure. Stars. </p></div><div class=""><p>She hated the Joker at that moment more than ever. She could be out there, helping, but instead, she was trapped in the Bunker, unable to even watch her family, restrained to staring at labelled dots on a map.</p></div><div class=""><p>Eight hours. Point nine million people. Just over a dozen vigilantes. They had enough cures for it, of course, they did, they were bats, but... she couldn’t even start to imagine the fatality projections.</p></div><div class=""><p>
      <em>The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.</em>
    </p></div><div class=""><p>They were dealing with statistics. Save who they could, let the rest burn.</p></div><div class=""><p>“Fourteen dead,” Duke reported, and Barbara turned to another screen, watching him send in the coordinates for her to add to the tally. They’d have to clear the bodies after the gas had cleared.</p></div><div class=""><p>“Acknowledged,” she said, staring blankly at the death toll so far. Almost three hundred. That was just who they'd found, that was without taking hospitals, car crashes, and deaths from exposure that she’d eventually have to add.</p></div><div class=""><p>No. One death, a funeral. One million, a failure.</p></div><div class=""><hr/></div><div class=""><p>From the Jacob Kane Memorial Bridge, Gotham looked like something out of a horror novel. Tigress could only watch the dark blue-green-purple-black gas swirl around the city; entering was not her job.</p></div><div class=""><p>Twenty-four hours. Behind her, the sun was rising, her shadow stretching across the pavement, the lack of cars making it feel like a ghost city.</p></div><div class=""><p>Ever so often, someone would stumble across the bridge, and she’d have to go meet them, usually hit them with a tranq, and drag them over to be dropped off at the first aid shelter. Only once had she had to really engage, and that had been with someone carrying a semi-automatic. (It had been empty, they'd learned once she’d taken it apart.)</p></div><div class=""><p>It was numbing.</p></div><div class=""><hr/></div><div class=""><p>Check. Inject. Move.</p></div><div class=""><p>Check. Inject. Move.</p></div><div class=""><p>Check. Inject. Move.</p></div><div class=""><p>So much fear.</p></div><div class=""><p>So much pain.</p></div><div class=""><p>Cassandra would <em>break</em> Scarecrow.</p></div><div class=""><p>After.</p></div><div class=""><p>Check. Inject. Move.</p></div><div class=""><p>Check. Inject. Move.</p></div></div>
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